It’s an all-Africa edition. I’m just as fascinated by South Sudan’s sovereignty as I am by Cairo’s protests.

Egypt Rises Up:

For some in the West, which has tended to put stability above democracy in its dealings with the Middle East, these developments are disturbing. Now that the protests have sucked the life out of Mr Mubarak’s regime, they argue, the vacuum will be filled not by democrats but by chaos and strife or by the Muslim Brothers, the anti-Western, anti-Israeli opposition. They conclude that America should redouble its efforts to secure a lengthy “managed transition” by shoring up either Mr Mubarak or someone like him.

That would be wrong. The popular rejection of Mr Mubarak offers the Middle East’s best chance for reform in decades. If the West cannot back Egypt’s people in their quest to determine their own destiny, then its arguments for democracy and human rights elsewhere in the world stand for nothing. Change brings risks—how could it not after so long?—but fewer than the grim stagnation that is the alternative.

Revolutions do not have to be like those in France in 1789, Russia in 1917 or Iran in 1979. The protests sweeping the Middle East have more in common with the popular colour revolutions that changed the world map in the late 20th century: peaceful (until the government’s thugs turned up), popular (no Robespierre or Trotsky running things behind the scenes), and secular (Islam has hardly reared its head). Driven by the power of its citizens, Egypt’s upheaval could lead to a transformation as benign as those in eastern Europe.

Pessimists point out that Egypt has neither the institutions nor the political leadership to ensure a smooth transition. But if it did, the people would not have taken to the streets. No perfectly formed democracy is about to emerge from the detritus of Mr Mubarak’s regime. Disorder seems likely to reign for some time. But Egypt, though poor, has a sophisticated elite, a well-educated middle class and strong sense of national pride. These are good grounds for believing that Egyptians can pull order out of this chaos.

Fear of the Muslim Brotherhood is anyway overdone. It is true that the Brothers produced Ayman al-Zawahiri, now Osama bin Laden’s number two and chief ideologue; the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Brothers’ leading thinker in the 1950s and 1960s, are certainly intolerant and hostile to the West. Any new Egyptian government, especially if it included the Brothers, would probably be harder on Israel and easier on Hamas, the Islamist offshoot that runs the Gaza Strip between Egypt and Israel, the very existence of which it in theory rejects.

Yet the Brothers are a varied bunch, and more flexible than they were. Though some argue for rescinding Egypt’s peace treaty of 1979 with Israel, they probably would not risk another war. Nor would they obviously win elections. They are respected for their piety, discipline and resilience, but estimates of their popularity hover around 20% and have been falling. If they did better than that, perhaps even winning power at the ballot box, some fear they might never let go. But Islamists participate in elections in countries such as Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia where democracy has taken hold.

If democracy is to flourish in Egypt, the Brothers must be allowed to compete for power; and the lesson of the past few weeks is that the alternative to democracy is a dead end. For several years now, unable to renew its institutions or find jobs for its youth, Egypt has been becoming more repressive. To leave 85m people to live under dictatorship—burdened by a corrupt and brutal police force, the suppression of the opposition, and the torture of political prisoners—would not just be morally wrong; it would also light the fuse for the next uprising. Some would wish to install a new strongman and wait for him to create the conditions for a secular democracy. But autocrats rarely plan for their own removal, as the sad state of the Middle East shows.

Was George Bush Right?:

So Mr Bush is vindicated? Not so fast. Yes, those who mocked his belief in the Arab appetite for democracy were wrong; he is to be admired for championing reform and nudging autocrats towards pluralism. But keep things in proportion. The big thing Mr Bush did in the Arab world was not to argue for an election here or a loosening of controls there. It was to send an army to conquer Iraq. Nothing that has happened in Tunisia or Egypt makes the consequences of that decision any less calamitous.

The war poisoned the Arabs’ reaction to everything America later said or did. Iraq is now a fragile democracy, but precious few Arabs (and rather few Europeans) believe that Mr Bush invaded Iraq for democracy’s sake. Many think the non-existent weapons of mass destruction were a pretext, too. In Cairo in 2009 Lexington met a pro-reform academic, Nader Fergany, still seething six years on. “The Americans are the Mongols of the 21st century,” he said, “and now Barack Obama is trying to put the icing on this dirty cake.” Whatever they think of the freedom message, most Arabs utterly reject the messenger.

Besides, even without Iraq, Mr Bush’s freedom agenda had its flaws. The chief of these was that Mr Bush wanted Arab democracy on the cheap. That is to say, he wanted Arab leaders to empower their people but at the same time to protect America’s strategic interests. That put a limit on how far he dared to push the reliable old autocrats. And, knowing this, the reliable old autocrats thought all they needed to do to stay safely on their perches was to wait Mr Bush out. Moreover, towards the end of his presidency, Mr Bush himself got cold feet. The electoral victories of Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hizbullah in Lebanon presented him with democracy’s foreseeable but unwelcome corollary, to wit that Arabs granted the gift of freedom might plump ungratefully at the ballot box for America’s bitter enemies.

Now For the Hard Part:

With a divorce now virtually certain, the two sides must contemplate a division of assets. First they must mark the border, the longest in Africa. That need not be a huge problem: both sides have agreed to stick to the border left behind by the British and, where land occupied by north or south is on the wrong side, they could agree to a swap. More important than the exact line is the nature of the border. Both sides would like it to be “soft” to allow for the free flow of goods and people. Ideally, they would create a demilitarised zone, but the UN has no wish to patrol it. Instead, a rapid-reaction force could be formed. If it fails to keep the peace, the border may end up more rigid than either side wants.

The trickiest part of the border dispute centres on the region of Abyei. Two years ago, and again in January, it saw vicious fighting. Burned-out vehicles and collapsed houses dot the landscape. Muslim cattlemen from further north believe they have grazing rights in the Kiir river valley. The northern government supports them. Oilfields below the verdant pastures have a lot do with it. “What Khartoum wants is black, not green,” says a southern general. Under the peace deal of 2005, Abyei was supposed to have its own referendum to decide which side its mainly Christian residents will join. But northern rigidity made that impossible. Now a deal must be done.

The existence of oil so near the border might be thought a catastrophe for Sudan. War seems to follow oil as if by a law of nature. But in this case, oil could be the lubricant that keeps the peace process going.

Not many of Sudan’s oilfields are disputed, as in Abyei. Most are solidly in the south. But the south is landlocked. At the moment it can export oil only down a pipeline that goes through the north to Port Sudan. The two sides need each other, and have shared revenues for years. In the south 98% of the government budget comes from oil; in the north it is about half.

The current sharing arrangement, designed for a single sovereign country, is likely to change after secession. The south may start paying the north hefty transfer fees instead of splitting revenues. If the two sides cannot agree, the old arrangement could continue for a while by default. The joker in the pack is a southern plan for a new pipeline to Kenya, cutting out the north. Yet foreign advisers in Juba have publicly doubted that the plan is viable. A sigh of relief was heard in Khartoum.
Little hope of a pension for Salva Kiir

Future fighting between north and south cannot be discounted. But the more likely source of violence now is an internal conflict in the south. Tribal loyalties are fierce, arms flow freely, army units are fractured and cattle-raiding is rampant. Most of the fighting of late has been between southern groups; there is less and less evidence of northern involvement. The south has to learn to take responsibility for itself.

At Sea:

However, eradicating Somali piracy is as hard as it is desirable. Because Somalia is not a functioning state, the pirates can operate freely from their harbours in the north, mostly in the breakaway territory of Puntland. Although ships from over 25 countries patrol the area and maritime law equips naval vessels off the Horn of Africa with powers of arrest, bringing pirates to justice is frustrated by cost, restrictive rules of engagement and politics. Hence 90% of captured pirates are released quickly and without sanction. And the foreign patrols’ effectiveness is declining as the pirates move ever farther offshore.

There are many suggested remedies, some bad. Outlawing ransoms is neither feasible nor in the hostages’ interests. Stationing armed guards on vessels or training crews to use firearms would only provoke a more brutal response from the pirates. Applying the historic cure for piracy—exemplary violence—would lead to many more dead hostages.

The successful campaign against the pirates who caused mayhem in the Malacca Strait a decade ago suggests that the answer lies onshore rather than offshore. Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore agreed to bury their differences and work together—patrolling, arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning pirates. At the same time as the risks for the pirates increased, conditions on shore improved. The post-tsunami peace settlement between the Indonesian government and rebels in Aceh, where most of the pirates came from, paved the way for investment, economic development and a better way of life.

A similar twin-track policy for Somali piracy would mean first putting money and effort into training coastguards, and constructing courts and prisons in the region. The authorities should also go after the dozen known kingpins who back the pirate gangs. At the same time, because it will take decades to rebuild the shattered Somali state, the outside world must itself engage directly with Puntland’s clans and help rebuild villages, infrastructure and fisheries which have been ravaged by foreign trawlers and the dumping of toxic waste. Although the region is chaotic, its prospects are not hopeless: neighbouring Somaliland, a breakaway piece of Somalia unrecognised by the rest of the world, makes a fair fist of governing itself.

The European Union, which operates one of the biggest anti-piracy naval forces in the area, says it is committed to a “comprehensive approach” that combines bringing pirates to justice and helping them find other livelihoods. It is a chance for Lady Ashton, the EU’s foreign and security chief, to show that her new external action service merits the name.

My Note: I agree with Professor Kelly – the ROK Navy’s performance in the Indian Ocean is impressive. Still, that spectacle and the non-issue of how tasty Korean prison food might be are distractions. The sword is a very blunt, costly policy tool, and quite unjust if large numbers of pirates are chain-ganged victims.

Opening Japan to the World:

The agenda is almost recklessly ambitious. Mr Kan plans to overhaul social security, giving more credible assurance about the state’s ability to pay future benefits. By June he will have plans to raise the consumption (ie, sales) tax as a means of stabilising the finances of one of the world’s most indebted countries, in which more government bonds are issued than tax revenues collected. Critics say that would cripple an already beleaguered economy. But, crucially, the plan combines fiscal tightening with measures to stimulate growth. Mr Kan wants Japan to join a radical free-trade area called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, currently being expanded to nine nations, including America. It would mean facing down the farm lobby to remove barriers to some of the planet’s most protected rice. Mr Kan’s preference for an America-oriented trading block is all of a piece with his efforts to revive the Japanese-American alliance: for the first time since Mr Koizumi, a prime minister is articulating a vision of Japan’s place in the world, as well as a response to a rising China.

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